Young lesbian decides to transition
This piece is two years old. Why must stories like this be confined to the lesbian and feminist blogosphere, while triumphant transition stories are saturating the media? The dots are easy to connect, but there is a willful ignoring on the part of journalists, “gender therapists,” and parents infected by transition fever. We must keep speaking out, and increase exposure of gender-critical alternatives until we break through the thick skin insulating public opinion inside the transition-is-the-answer bubble. We have to. We owe it to all the girls and young women who need our advocacy.
“I was reading some comments yesterday from straight men and women and it was pretty astonishing to see not only how little they know about lesbians and trans people, but also how little they really actually care about lesbians.Here is this blog, created and written by a butch lesbian about her lived experiences and her opinions based on those lived experiences and these straight women and men were commenting about how there is no such pressure to conform, there is no such pressure to transition. Hell, they even commented on how harmless the cotton ceiling is and how it doesn’t attempt shame lesbians into having sex with men who call themselves women.
Instead of believing a woman who has lived these experiences and knows about them first hand, these straight people also drank the trans kool-aid and believed the rhetoric spewed forth by the trans community. Instead of listening to what I had to say about lesbians, butches, and trans people, these women and men decided that I was just another silly woman screaming about how awful the menz are and that they shouldn’t take me seriously.
So it shouldn’t be surprising to see young butch dykes out there who are subjected to the trans propaganda, feel like they should transition. It shouldn’t be surprising that young dykes out there who are confronted daily by a society that ignores, ridicules, and even tries to exterminate butch lesbians, feel like they should transition. I shouldn’t be surprising that young dykes out there who hear from the straight community all of the homophobic, lesbophobic, and misogynistic crap they say about lesbians and women, while praising trans for “being brave,” feel like they should transition.
No, it isn’t surprising that this young woman was resigned to her fate. It isn’t surprising that she was ready to stop being a lesbian and conform to what people everywhere shove down non-conforming women’s throats about transitioning. It isn’t surprising that she was ready to live life “as a man.” It’s heartbreaking, because I, like so many other women out there who refuse to conform to this patriarchal society’s demands, have been there; and sometimes, it’s just easier to go with the flow of those around you and do what is expected.
Someone on my Twitter joked about staging an intervention for this young woman; and I really wish we could. I wish a group of us could sit her down and tell her that she is beautiful and handsome and wonderful just the way she is, that she is part of a community filled with a rich and amazing history, that she is loved and cherished for the non-conforming woman that she is. Our intervention could even consist of women who I keep meeting through my blog, women who went through the transition stages in their attempts to become men and who, years later, regretted that decision and are on their way back to the women they always were.”
I consider this one of my PERSONAL.crusades: to convince as many Butch women as possible NOT to transition to tap into their Amazon pasts and Being and connect with Butch Dyke herstory and heros writers musicians and Butch womyn who have broken through as the first womyn in so many fields as pioneers because they stood without fear of male derision or put down since they have no investment in femininity….we have a rich herstory. If Ive only convinced a handful not to transition and I have…I’ve done my job. If I can convince more that makes me even happier. Thank Goddess I came out in the early 80s when there were strong Lesbian and Feminist communities because I KNOW I d be one of these young women subject to the deadly siren song of transition as a Butch.
You can always call upon me to be at your side in this struggle!!
-In Sisterhood, FeistyAmazon
I am not butch nor am I attracted to butch women, but I too think this is tragic for so many reasons. I guess this is an unfortunate side effect of widespread acceptance and normalization of most of the LGB experience: if you are the standard LGB person, you’re okay; those who are the most gender non-conforming aren’t allowed. FeistyAmazon is right, there’s virtually no LGB community left anymore. Even online our website are dominated by trans issues with trans thought police out in force. I wish I had some way to help. Sadly, it will take a huge crisis, most likely medically related from hormone medications, to effect any change.
I’m a straight woman who was a “tomboy” growing up, who decided to remain one in adulthood. Even now in my 50s, I still bristle at the word “feminine” and “lady” (as opposed to woman). I’m not really butch, but neither am I “feminine”. I’m kind of the “low-maintenance, no-nonsense” type. Straight women like me, instead of being urged to transition are more likely urged to “be more ‘feminine'”,
BUT, I shudder to think of what could have happened to me if I were a tomboy little girl now. Back in the 60s when I was a little kid, my parents just let me be myself according to my own personality, and didn’t get all worked up about me not herding with the crowd. Nowadays, however, there’s all sorts of pressures for parents to put their kids on the trans train if they have non-stereotypical personalities. I’m very glad to have grown up when I did and to have had laid-back parents who loved me just as I was.
Me, I’m so glad you commented. Not all women who are feeling the trans pressure are lesbians, and your voice is really important here. In one sense, straight women who aren’t “feminine” or “ladies” (I’ve always hated that word too) have a particularly difficult path in terms of relationships. How many straight men want a woman who doesn’t wear makeup, shave her legs, or otherwise kowtow to the porn star look so popular today? It’s stunning to see how we’ve gone backwards. Me being a tomboy (as a kid and an adult–a “tomwoman?”) was AOK with my parents, too. I never, ever got the message that I should conform to some gender stereotype. Thanks for writing and hope to hear more from you here.
I did, however, manage to get married (divorced now, for common mundane reasons) and to have a son (Now in his 30s). Had an active sex life in my youth, too. Not all men want high-maintenance women, believe me.
You will hear from me again, as I believe strongly in what you’re doing here. I don’t agree with transgenderism in general, but adults are free to make their own decisions, however misguided.
But leave our children alone! They don’t have full cognitive development, so they can’t make a fully informed decision that will alter their lives forever. Magical thinking, which the entire philosophy of transgenderism is based on, is especially common in children.
It is in recognition that children do not reach full cognitive development until adulthood that they are not allowed to get married, vote, live independently, be responsible for their debts, join the armed forces, consent to sexual relations, drink alcohol, smoke, and so on. And neither are parents allowed to make these decisions for their children to allow them to do these things, contrary to the protective laws prohibiting children from doing so. Why should this be any different?
Even more so, because it is permanently giving up one’s reproductive capacity, using dangerous puberty blockers and later, cross sex hormones that have not had long term testing as to the effects on the human body, and making that child, who was born with a healthy body, a permanent medical patient. 100 years ago, sterilizing healthy children was called eugenics and seen today as a human rights violation. Why people can’t see that the transgendering of children today is just as much a human rights violation just boggles my mind,
Keep up the good work!
Why must stories like this be confined to the lesbian and feminist blogosphere, while triumphant transition stories are saturating the media?
I know this is probably a rhetorical question, but it underlines how quickly people will align with anything that gives an excuse to express their misogyny and hatred of lesbians and other non-conforming (to male demands) women.
The whole trans cult is a perfect storm of male fetishism, male power, lesbian-hating along with both reactionary bigotry and liberal stupidity to enable the whole thing.